Attorney Perspective: Domain Name Theft & Cybersquatting

12/06/2011

MGM Resorts International files cybersquatting lawsuit in US District Court in Las Vegas against four individuals and two companies for cybersquatting on its casino and poker related domain names such as bellagioonlinepoker.com, circuscircuspoker.com, excaliburpoker.com, luxorpoker.com, mandalaybayonlinepoker.com and ariapoker.com.

MGM alleges that the defendants have registered "confusingly similar" domain names with the bad faith intent to profit from the registrations. Read full complaint below:

09/12/2011

Traverse Legal's Internet Law Attorneys can help you protect your brand against .XXX cybersquatting and trademark infringement.

While the initial sunrise period has concluded, trademark owners still have an opportunity to protect their brand against registrations under the .XXX TLD by becoming the domain owner through registration. If your trademark protected domain name or brand is registered by a third party under the .XXX TLD, your consumers and SEO could be affected. The last thing any trademark owner wants is for a .XXX domain name to be returned if a consumer is searching Google, Yahoo or Bing for your trademark protected name.

As of September 7, 2011, owners of registered trademarks can file applications to prevent third parties from registering .XXX domain names containing their trademarks. This initial period, known as the sunrise period, will conclude on October 28, 2011. Applications to opt-out can be submitted through any .XXX accredited registrar, with costs varying depending upon the registrar.

07/28/2011

According to Domain Incite author Kevin Murphy, children toy manufacturer Lego recently passed Microsoft in filed complaints against cybersquatters, reporting that Lego has filed 236 cases under the UDRP since 2006, one more than Microsoft. “The 236 cases equates to over $350,000 in WIPO fees alone,” Murphy estimates. “I’d be surprised if Lego has spent less than $1 million on UDRP cases over the last few years,” he explains. Murphy also reports that America Online (AOL) has both companies beat with approximately 277 filed UDRP cases in the last decade.

So how aggressive should you be in pursing cybersquatting cases against cybersquatters under the UDRP?

04/01/2010

A recent survey of over 1000 registered trademark brands owned by Fortune 100 companies show that Brands aren't defensively registering domain names as was originally predicted. Antony Van Couvering discusses the results of the survey in regards to defensive registration and cybersquatting with Damien Allen on today's program.

Brands registered as trademarks prioritize where they are going to make defensive registrations

In dot.com registration, 100% of these brands are registered trademarks. In dot.org, 75%, dot.biz is 65% and dot.travel only 10% were registered.

In the new open TLDs since dot.biz and dot.info were introduced in 2001, the aggregate is only 29%. Both in brands and any cybersquatting.

Trademark registration is they most important thing you can do to protect your company name and brand on-line.

Damien Allen: Good afternoon and welcome to Trademark Law Radio. My name is Damien Allen and joining me today on the phone is Antony Van Couvering of Minds and Machines. Good afternoon, Antony. Welcome to the program.

09/08/2008

The majority of the Panel also finds that the use of a privacy shield in this case further supports its finding of bad faith registration. Although privacy shields might be legitimate in some cases – such as protecting the identity of a critic against reprisal – it is difficult to see why a PPC advertiser needs to protect its identity except to frustrate the purposes of the Policy or make it difficult for a brand owner to protect its trademarks against infringement, dilution and cybersquatting. In circumstances like this, the privacy shield may also allow registrants to transfer domain name registrations amongst themselves without any public record that there has been a transfer, thus allowing them to evade enforcement of legitimate third-party rights or to obstruct proceedings commenced under the Policy...

- What is your advice to other domainers to prevent having they names stolen

1. update your whois info if you don’t want to lose your domains… 2. Keep your computer secure…if something looks wrong with your computer, it probably is; so reinstall your computer, believe you me, it’s worth it. that’s the only way that you can be sure that you’ve rid of the viruses. 3. keep your email accounts secure; my emails were compromised, and i subsequently lost my domains; i’m just glad that i got my email accounts back in the end….if you use gmail.com, read this: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?ctx=gmail&answer=45938 4. set up different accounts at godaddy…using different passwords…so even if one of your accounts is compromised, you wouldn’t lose them all 5. keep a log of your domains just in case…godaddy wouldn’t give me a list of my lost domains for security reasons…so even though i know the number of domains i lost, i don’t know exactly what they are….even if you’ve got receipts of them, it takes a long time to compile the list (if you’ve got many domains, that is)

Domain name theft is a common occurrence. Yet, most people take their domain name for granted, even when they are generating substantial revenue through their web site. Don't wait until a domain thief steals your domain name. Protect yourself from becoming the victim of a stolen domain name. Contact domain name dispute attorney for more information.

06/02/2008

Last week, computer hackers gained access and control of Comcast’s domain management system hosted by Network Solutions. The hackers took control over Comcast’s homepage and webmail for nearly five hours before they could regain control.

"…The hackers say the attack began Tuesday, when the pair used a combination of social engineering and a technical hack to get into Comcast's domain management console at Network Solutions. They declined to detail their technique, but said it relied on a flaw at the Virginia-based domain registrar.

Network Solutions spokeswoman Susan Wade disputes the hackers' account. "We now know that it was nothing on our end," she says. "There was no breach in our system or social engineering situation on our end."

However they got in, the intrusion gave the pair control of over 200 domain names owned by Comcast. They changed the contact information for one of them, Comcast.net, to Defiant's e-mail address; for the street address, they used the "Dildo Room" at "69 Dick Tard Lane."

04/30/2008

On April 17, 2008 a NAF Arbitration Panel (David Sorkin Dissenting) ordered the transfer of lh.com from Future Media Architects, Inc. to Deutsche Lufthansa AG. Read the cybersquatting and transfer decision here. The most interesting part of the decision was the Panel's conclusion that buying and holding domain names was not a legitimate use. The Panel stated:

"Respondent’s business model involves the indiscriminate acquisition and use of as many such domain names as possible. The traditional analyses of the rights to or legitimate interests element should not apply in gross when a registrant is not seeking to use any particular domain name to conduct business, is not otherwise known by that name, and has no interest in the nature of the transferor’s rights there from."

04/05/2008

This lack of direct control is often a central theme in a cybersquatter’s response to a UDRP complaint. At least one UDRP panel bought this argument. See Admiral Insurance Services v. Dicker, WIPO Case No. D2005-0241 (“the Panel accepts that the terms under which Google makes its Adsense advertisements available do not permit the Respondent to control them . . .”). However, that panel included David Sorkin, which makes its findings suspect. (He rules for complainants less than 1/3 of the time, and has earned more than $100,000 in UDRP panelist fees. Do the math).

The prevailing trend is that the “willful blindness” argument is not valid, as illustrated in the recent decision: State of Florida, Florida Department of Management Services v. Bent Pettersen, WIPO Case No. D2008-0039 ... In coming to this conclusion, the Panels referred to another recent case, Villeroy &amp; Boch AG v. Mario Pingerna, WIPO Case No. D2007-1912.

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